Expect
2 tests of the emergency outdoor sirens today, at 1:45 pm and 6:45 pm.
Remember, the sirens were designed for outdoor use (only). They were
never meant to be heard indoors.

Tornadoes
are photogenic, hypnotic and terrifying; they tend to hog media airtime
at a local and national level. But lately flooding has been Minnesota's
biggest weather killer, with 13 deaths since 1993. Nationwide 75
percent of flash flood deaths occur at night; half of all victims perish
in their vehicles, trying to drive through flooded roads. A reminder
than 6 inches of moving water can knock you off your feet. 2 feet of
water can float your car or SUV, with tragic consequences. NOAA says it
best: "turn around - don't drown".

Showers
taper today, ending as wet snow over the Minnesota Arrowhead, where a
few inches of slush may temporarily annoy the robins. Sunshine returns
Friday and Saturday with highs in the low 60s. Clouds build Sunday with
more heavy showers and T-storms Monday.

I see a slight cool bias the next 2 weeks, keeping severe outbreaks south of Minnesota. Quiet, siren-free weather for now.

Photo credit: AP.

Flooding: Minnesota's Biggest Weather Killer. Minnesota's Department of Public Safety explains: "Nationally,
floods claim nearly 200 lives each year, force 300,000 persons from
their homes and result in property damage in excess of $2 billion. In
Minnesota, floods kill more people than any other weather event; 15
people have died in floods since 1993. About 75 percent of flash-flood
deaths occur at night. Half of the victims die in automobiles or other
vehicles. Many deaths occur when people drive around road barricades
that clearly indicate that the road is washed out ahead. In 2007, a
deadly flood occurred August 18-19 in southeast Minnesota, killing seven
people and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses. A state record
for rainfall was set at Hokah — 15.1 inches in 24 hours — while several
other areas received more than eight inches of rain..." (File image: NOAA).

Statewide Tornado Drills Today.
Remember that the sirens are only meant for outdoor use. They were
never designed to be heard inside homes, offices, stores and hospitals.
Don't rely on just the sirens to get essential warnings. Here's an
update on today's siren test from Homeland Security and Emergency Management: "The most important events during Severe Weather Awareness Week are the two annual statewide tornado drills. These drills are scheduled for Thursday, April 20 2017 at 1:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. (Counties
may chose to opt out of the drills if actual severe weather is possible
in the area). Outdoor warning sirens and NOAA Weather Radios will sound
in a simulated tornado warning. The first drill is intended for
institutions and businesses. The evening drill is intended for second
shift workers and families..."

In a House With a Basement

Avoid
windows. Get in the basement and under some kind of sturdy protection
(heavy table or work bench), or cover yourself with a mattress or
sleeping bag. Know where very heavy objects rest on the floor above
(pianos, refrigerators, waterbeds, etc.) and do not go under them. They
may fall down through a weakened floor and crush you.

In a House With No Basement

Avoid
windows. Go to the lowest floor, small center room (like a bathroom or
closet), under a stairwell, or in an interior hallway with no windows.
Crouch as low as possible to the floor, facing down; and cover your head
with your hands. A bath tub may offer a shell of partial protection.
Even in an interior room, you should cover yourself with some sort of
thick padding (mattress, blankets, etc.), to protect against falling
debris in case the roof and ceiling fail.

In an Apartment, Dorm or Condo

If
you live in an apartment that is on an upper floor, get to the lowest
level of the building that you can immediately. This could be an
underground parking garage or a neighbor’s first floor apartment. Then
move to the most interior area possible, away from windows. If you live
in a high-rise apartment building, you may not have enough time to get
to a lower level, so picking a place in the hallway in the center of
your building is the best idea such as a stairwell. If that is not
available then a closet, bathroom or interior hall without windows is
the safest spot in your apartment during a tornado. Power loss during a
tornado storm is common, so avoid elevators and keep a flashlight
handy...

Image credit above: Homeland Security.

Bathtubs: Last Line of Tornado Defense.
If you don't have a basement the safest place to ride out a tornado is a
small, interior room on the ground floor. The more walls between you
and the tornado, the better. People have survived tornadoes by hiding in
their bathtubs, with a mattress above their heads. You probably won't
see a tornado this year but lightning is pervasive. NOAA reminds us to
avoid plumbing, windows, doors and porches when lightning is flickering
overhead. Smartphones are fine, but stay off corded phones. Your home,
office, store or vehicle offers the best protection.

Severe Threat Shifts East.
Last night's severe storm outbreak over Nebraska and Iowa may be
repeated later today from near Indianapolis and Dayton to Toledo,
Cleveland, Detroit and Buffalo, where storms may pack large hail,
damaging winds, even an isolated tornado. NOAA SPC has a "slight risk"
of severe storms for the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, as well.

Rainfall Potential.
Rainfall totals are forecast to exceed an inch across much of
southeastern Minnesota and Wisconsin from this storm; showers tapering
off this morning as a drying northwest wind kicks in behind the storm.
At the rate we're going your lawn will be roughly this shade of green by
Friday afternoon.

Winter's Last Snarl?
I probably said something similarly stupid a month or two ago, but this
time I really mean it! A few inches of slush may pile up from the
Arrowhead and North Shore into the U.P. of Michigan. Whatever falls
should be gone fairly quickly. Map credit: AerisWeather AMP.No Rest For The Weather-Weary.
A line of strong to severe T-storms rumbles across the Ohio Valley
today; farther north, deeper into colder air, a shield of rain changes
to snow over far northern Michigan. A ridge o f high pressure dries out
the west coast for a few days; more mountain snow piles up across the
Rockies. 84-Hour 12 KM NAM: NOAA and Tropicaltidbits.com.

Slight Cool Bias.
ECMWF guidance continues to show temperatures running a few degrees
cooler than average the next 2 weeks, but the metro area should avoid a
frost or freeze into early May. Significant warming is likely just to
the south of Minnesota, setting up a strong thermal (baroclinic)
temperature contrast, one that may support more soggy storms with above
average rainfall amounts. Graph: WeatherBell.

Early May: Early Summer Eastern Half of USA. If the GFS forecast for 500 mb winds verifies temperatures may surge into the 70s and 80s as far north as the Twin Cities, Chicago and Detroit by the first week of May.

The Nation is Immersed In Its Warmest Period In Recorded History. Jason Samenow reports at Capital Weather Gang: "The
U.S. is enduring a stretch of abnormally warm weather unsurpassed in
the record books, and it shows no immediate sign of ending. The latest
one-, two-, three-, four- and five year periods — ending in March — rank
as the warmest in 122 years of record-keeping for the Lower 48 states,
according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. Freakish bouts of warm weather have accompanied
this long period of historic warmth, unlike anything previously
experienced. In February of this year, Chicago witnessed multiple 70-degree days for the first time and a record snowless streak. Denver hit 80 degrees as early as it ever has (in a calendar year). Meanwhile, spring arrived as much as three weeks early in the South..."

Tahoe Got So Much Snow You Can Ski All Winter.
Record warmth, more water in the air, and that translates into heavier
rains (and snows). 63 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada isn't going
anywhere anytime soon, resports Bloomberg Pursuits: "Don’t
have Fourth of July plans yet? How about a ski weekend … at Lake Tahoe?
That’s what Andy Wirth, chief executive officer of Squaw Valley,
is proposing after an historically snowy winter that surpassed 700
inches of snowfall this week. He’s so sure that this season’s snowfall
will stick around, he’s hoping to stay open straight through the summer
months and into the 2017-18 winter season. “I’ll drop something on you
that you may not be expecting,” Wirth told Truckee Tahoe Radio on Saturday. “We are actually considering staying open through the summer and fall so it becomes the ’16-17-18 season..." (Photo credit: Squaw Valley).

Storms, Hail and Lightning.
A home, office, store or even a vehicle offers the greatest protection
from lightning. Homeland Security and Emergency Management has a good post focused on non-tornado-related thunderstorm threats. Here are a few nuggets:

* Straight-line thunderstorm winds can exceed 120 mph, which is stronger and more destructive than most tornadoes.
*
On average, nearly 50 people die per year in the United States due to
lightning (down from an average of nearly 330 people per year in the
1940’s), and nearly four times as many men are killed as women.
* Lightning causes $1 billion in damage each year.
* Lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun, and can reach temperatures around 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit!
* Hail can exceed softball size (5” diameter) and does even more damage when driven by the wind.

"Heat Lightning"? There's No Such Thing.
It's just lightning from a thunderstorm over the horizon reflecting off
high cirrus clouds - too far away to hear thunder. Details via NOAA: "The
term heat lightning is commonly used to describe lightning from a
distant thunderstorm just too far away to see the actual cloud-to-ground
flash or to hear the accompanying thunder. While many people
incorrectly think that heat lightning is a specific type of lightning,
it is simply the light produced by a distant thunderstorm. Often,
mountains, hills, trees or just the curvature of the earth prevent the
observer from seeing the actual lightning flash. Instead, the faint
flash seen by the observer is light being reflected off higher-level
clouds. Also, the sound of thunder can only be heard for about 10 miles
from a flash."

Lightning Claims More Lives Than Tornadoes.
It's true - lightning is the often underrated, ignored weather risk,
pervasive to the point where maybe we all let our guard down a little
too often. Graphic: Scott County Sheriff.

El Nino: Watching,Waiting For Signs It Could Return. AL.com has an update: "La Nina is history -- but El Nino might not be gone for long. That's according to the latest monthly discussion on
the matter from climate researchers. ENSO-neutral conditions prevailed
in March, and could continue though at least the rest of the spring,
according to the report from a group that includes NOAA's Climate
Prediction Center, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction,
the National Weather Service and the International Research Institute
for Climate and Society. However, researchers believe there are
increasing odds of El Nino returning by the late summer or fall..."

Graphic credit: "The
tropical Pacific was giving mixed signals in March. Some areas (in
blue) were cooler than average while others (in red) were warmer." (NOAA).

Budget Cuts to Weather and Satellite Programs Are Likely to Cost Us a Lot More Than They Save. Here's an excerpt from Pacific Standard: "...Organizations
from airlines to the military to your local television station use data
from these satellites to make operational decisions, issue forecasts,
and warn people about tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. Scientists also
use the data to understand how our local weather patterns are affected
by long-term changes in climate. There are several different types of
weather satellites operated by the federal government, among which is a
set that orbits the Earth’s poles. Polar-orbiting satellites help
forecasters see global trends driving the weather in the United States,
and the data they produce is critical for making forecasts days in
advance.Our weather satellites are the responsibility of two federal
agencies, the Department of Defense and the National Atmospheric and
Oceanic Administration, both of which are behind in their efforts to
launch the next generation of polar orbiters. If the existing satellites
fail before the new ones are in place, we will have a gap in our
weather data, which, the GAO warns, “would endanger lives, property, and our nation’s critical infrastructures...”

Severe Weather Awareness Week in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The more sources of warning information, the better. But I continue to
believe that a NOAA Weather Radio should be mandatory for every home,
apartment, office, hospital and nursing home. Nothing else will wake you
up at 3 am if a tornado is approaching. Here's more information from
Homeland Security and Emergency Management: "...According to the
National Weather Service, Minnesota experiences an average of 40
tornadoes per year. In 2012, 37 twisters touched down. A record was set
in 2010 with 104 tornadoes across the state. Understanding this threat
and knowing what to do when a tornado is approaching can save lives.
Take advantage of Severe Weather Awareness Week to review your own and
your family's emergency procedures and prepare for weather-related
hazards..."

File photo: Randy Widmayer.

Severe Weather Myths, Misses and Misconceptions.
Every spring I hear the same stuff from bright, high-functioning
adults. "Tornadoes can't hit cities or cross lakes & rivers!" Wrong.
"If it's not raining I can't be hit by lightning." Wrong. "It's just
"heat lightning" Paul, not a threat!" No such thing as heat lightning;
it's just lightning from a distant T-storm, too far away to hear the
thunder. 554 tornadoes have already touched down in 2017 (preliminary
count), on track to rival record seasons in 2011 and 2008. Fact: 44
percent of Americans killed by tornadoes since 1985 were in mobile
homes. Make sure there's a shelter nearby - consider moving to a safer
location (office building or a store) when a "watch" is issued.

File photo: NOAA.Greensburg To Remember Tornado. The tornado that hit Greensburg, Kansas was a monster, a huge, violent wedge torando. Dodge City Daily Globe has a story on efforts to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of that horrible day: "Greensburg
was destroyed almost 10 years ago by a deadly tornado. Since then the
community has embraced the green in Greensburg. The community will hold
several 10th anniversary events beginning May 4 and concluding May 7.
City officials are currently trying to finish a sidewalk as part of
Starlight Public Art Park, located kitty-corner from city hall..."

Photo credit: "The
center of Greensburg is shown on May 17, 2007, in this FEMA photo. the
town resembles a bomb site 12 days after it was hit by an EF-5 torando.
The community will hold a 10th anniversary event which remembers the
night of the tornando, but also the spirit of the community." Photo by Greg Marshall/FEMA.Climate and the Weather-Sensitive U.S. Economy. Buffalo meteorologist Don Paul has an informative post at The Buffalo News: "...Most
people are unaware of just how weather-sensitive our economy is. The
insurance industry has some of the numbers. According to the Reinsurance
Association of America, an insurance trade association, extreme
weather-related losses have gone up 350 percent since 1980. That’s $1.1
trillion in losses. In a study published in the Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society, data shows U.S. businesses sustaining about
$500 billion in weather-related losses annually, as of 2011. In just one
example, NASA’s Langley Research Center reports the airline industry
loses at least $100 million annually due to turbulence, which causes
flight delays and injuries. Weather is the root cause tied to more than
half of all insurance claims, according to the industry. Those costs
will inevitably continue to climb because so many are choosing to live
in areas prone to more frequent extreme weather..."

Take That Europe. Computer Modelers Aims to Give U.S. Lead in Weather Predictions. Science AAAS has a fascinating story: "...Recently,
NWS has suffered some prominent embarrassments, such as in 2012, when
it predicted Hurricane Sandy would sputter out over the ocean while a
leading European center accurately forecast the direct hit on New York
City. Fed up with the country’s second-place status, Congress in 2013
poured $48 million into NWS weather modeling. The message for NOAA was
clear: Get America on top. This drive has opened up an opportunity. For a
long time, meteorologists and climate scientists operated in separate
domains. Meteorologists focused on speed: ingesting as many data as
possible from satellites, balloons, and buoys and quickly spinning it
into a forecast. Climate scientists focused on the fussy physics of
their models to produce plausible simulations over decades. But now, the
two groups are discovering common ground, in “subseasonal to seasonal”
predictions—from a month to 2 years out. In order to push forecasts
beyond 10 days or so, meteorologists need the superior physics of the
climate models..."

The State of the Air, 2017. Here's an update that caught my eye from The American Lung Association: "...Overall, the best progress came in the continued reduction of ozone and year-round particle pollution, thanks
to cleaner power plants and increased use of cleaner vehicles and
engines. Continued progress to cleaner air remains crucial to reduce the
risk of premature death, asthma attacks and lung cancer. However, a
changing climate is making it harder to protect human health.
Nearly 4 in 10 people (38.9 percent) in the United States live in
counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle
pollution. More than 125 million Americans live in 204 counties
where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution in the
form of either ozone or short-term or year-round levels of particles..."EPA Seeks Delay Over Rule Curbing Coal Plants' Toxic Pollution. The Washington Post has an update: "The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday asked a federal court to delay an oral argument in a challenge involving a 2012 regulation
limiting the amount of mercury, lead and other airborne toxins emitted
from power plants. While the power sector has largely already complied
with the rule, several companies and 15 states — including Oklahoma,
which was represented by current EPA head Scott Pruitt when he was the
state’s attorney general — are seeking to overturn it. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was set to hear the case
on May 18..."

Photo credit: "Smoke and steam billow from cooling towers and smokestacks at the Bruce Mansfield power plant near Shippingport, Pa." (Joby Warrick/The Washington Post)See The Best and Worst Places for Breathable Air in the U.S. It turns out the cleanest air isn't always in rural areas, according to new research highlighted at National Geographic: "The
air Americans breathe is cleaner than ever, thanks to cleaner power
plants and cleaner vehicles. That milestone is all the more impressive
when considering progress has been achieved in spite of increases in
population, energy use, and miles driven. Yet nearly 40 percent of
Americans—125 million people—still live where the air is unhealthy to
breathe. Those findings are contained in the American Lung Association’s
annual State of the Air report, released Wednesday...Six cities ranked
on all three pollutant lists for cleanest cities. They had no high ozone
or high particle pollution days, and were among the 25 cities with the
lowest year-round particle levels. Five cities are repeaters:
Burlington, Vermont, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida, Elmira-Corning, New
York, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay on Florida’s
Space Coast..."

Photo credit: Fidel L Soto.

Once a Strip Mine, This Land Could Become a "History-Making" Solar Energy Farm. Now here's a novel idea, highlighted at Lexington Herald Leader: "Developers
are studying the potential to install tens of thousands of solar panels
on a reclaimed surface mine in Pike County. If the project becomes
reality, it would bolster the economy in a place desperate for jobs and
make the county — which long topped the state in mining coal — a key
producer of renewable energy. “This is really a history-making project
for the region,” said Ryan Johns, an executive with Berkeley Energy
Group, a Pike County company involved in the idea..."

Photo credit: "This
drone footage shows a reclaimed strip mine in Pike County, Ky., where
investors are studying the potential for a large solar panel array.
Video provided by Berkeley Energy Group." Berkeley Energy Group

What Sets Successful CEOs Apart. Here's an excerpt from The Harvard Business Review: "...The
behaviors we’re about to describe sound deceptively simple. But the key
is to practice them with maniacal consistency, which our work reveals
is a great challenge for many leaders. Deciding with speed and
conviction: Legends about CEOs who always seem to know exactly how to
steer their companies to wild success seem to abound in business. But we
discovered that high-performing CEOs do not necessarily stand out for
making great decisions all the time; rather, they stand out for being
more decisive. They make decisions earlier, faster, and with greater
conviction. They do so consistently—even amid ambiguity, with incomplete
information, and in unfamiliar domains. In our data, people who were
described as “decisive” were 12 times more likely to be high-performing
CEOs..."

Are You Walking the Path of Successful or Average? Here's the intro to a challenging post at Thrive Global: "What
do you believe to be true that most people do not? asks Peter Thiel in
his book "Zero To One". This question is genius. Why? Because although
we all strive for unconventional levels of financial success, most
people think conventionally, leading them nowhere. Thiel’s question
forces you to think like a contrarian for a brief powerful moment. Do
you own your own life? I ask, because most of us live like we don’t.
Thiel’s question is brilliant because the way you answer it tells you
what path you’re already on. This is where your life and money get
interesting. Let’s go..." (Photo credit: Joshua Earle).

The Stuff Of Your Nightmares: 66-Foot Spider Web. Here's a vaguely horrifying story at Atlas Obscura: "A
New Zealand family was shocked Sunday to find that the shimmering waves
that had begun to cover their local soccer field were in fact one giant
spider web. According to the Otago Daily Times,
the 66-foot web is located in Papamoa, about 140 southeast of Auckland,
New Zealand. “We thought surely there are no spiders inside that,”
Tracey Maris, who discovered the web with her daughter, told the Daily
Times. “We walked further up, and our feet started getting stuck in the
cobwebs and then we noticed little black things on top..."

Saturday Book Signing.
I'm looking forward to my vist at the Ridgehaven Barnes and Noble in
Minnetonka this upcoming Saturday, April 22, from 1-3 pm. Stop by and
say hi, even if you have zero interest in my latest book, "Caring for
Creation: The Evangelical's Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy
Environment." Details here.

Minnesota March for Science. Here are details on Saturday's march and rally at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul: "The
Start Point of the March for Science Minnesota will be Cathedral Hill
Park in St. Paul. The march will begin at 11:00 AM on Earth Day, April
22. Participants will march from the Start Point to the Minnesota State
Capitol, where the Rally will start at 12 PM. Please plan to arrive at
the Start Point 30 to 45 minutes in advance to account for the increased
traffic and public transportation congestion which may be caused by
this event..."

Minnesota Eco Events has a detailed list of events related to Earth Day here.

Earth Day and the March for Science. More perspective at NPR: "...Well,
let's face it. There is no Earth Day without science. But we should
really go back to before 1970 and that first Earth Day. If it weren't
for the deep science that was giving us the warnings about our air and
our water back then, there wouldn't have been an Earth Day. I'm a
student of the Industrial Revolution. By 1970, 100-plus years of
industrial society had left a long trail. It was in the decade or so
before 1970 that people recognized the links between asthma and air
pollution and water quality and disease. So the science started piling
on until people couldn't ignore it. I don't mean people like you, or me,
but the people in Congress. The people in charge of making laws There
wasn't a big environmental community back then. Before Earth Day there
were basically just movements for conservation, which was about
preserving species either for hunting or for using as some kind of
natural resource..." (Image credit: NOAA).

I'm a Tea Party Conservative. Here's How to Win Over Republicans on Renewable Energy. Vox has a terrific interview with Debbie Dooley: "...Dooley is a conservative, gun-owning Trump supporter who also happens to be a co-founder of the Tea Party. Dooley runs Conservatives for Energy Freedom,
where she advocates for the expansion of renewable energy and for cuts
to government regulations she believes hinder that growth. Through her
efforts, she has even won over unlikely allies such as Al Gore.
According to Dooley, the problem with her fellow conservatives is that
“they've been brainwashed for decades into believing we're not damaging
the environment.” As a result, Dooley speaks with them about renewable
energy in a political language conservatives respect, using phrases like
energy freedom, energy choice, and national security..."

Weather Disasters from Climate Change Are Pushing Some Companies to Amazon's Cloud, Says CTO. Here's an excerpt of a story at CNBC: "Amazon
Web Services has been winning business worldwide from companies that
are stripping down their data centers and taking advantage of emerging
cloud technologies. Some clients are signing on for a different reason:
climate change. From New Jersey to Japan, massive storms and earthquakes
in recent years have instantly wiped out technical infrastructures,
leaving businesses unable to retrieve critical data. Amazon Chief
Technology Officer Werner Vogels told CNBC on Tuesday that companies are
turning to the cloud to make sure their data is backed up and always
accessible..."

When Rising Seas Transform Risk Into Uncertainty.
We've gone from theory to reality. The water is rising (at the same
time land is subsiding in many areas) and the result is a greater
frequency of coastal flooding, even when no storms are present. Here's
an excerpt from The New York Times: "...Insurance
serves as a bulwark, both financial and mental, against the fact that
we live in a fundamentally uncertain and dangerous world. "The
revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and
the past," the financial historian Peter L. Bernstein wrote in his 1996
book, "Against the Gods," "is the mastery of risk: the notion that the
future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not
passive before nature." Calamity can come for us all, but by bundling
enough separate peril together we manage to form a general stability, a
collective hedge against helplessness. As climate insecurity mounts,
though, that math will get harder..."

Photo credit: "Larchmont-Edgewater,
a Norfolk, Va. neighborhood frequently plagued by floods. The house in
the center has been raised above flood levels, the one at left has not." Benjamin Lowy for The New York Times.

For the First Time on Record, Human-Caused Climate Change Has Rerouted an Entire River. Chris Mooney explains at The Washington Post: "A team of scientists on Monday documented what
they’re describing as the first case of large-scale river
reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change. They found
that in mid-2016, the retreat of a very large glacier in Canada’s Yukon
territory led to the rerouting of its vast stream of meltwater from one
river system to another — cutting down flow to the Yukon’s largest lake,
and channeling freshwater to the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, rather
than to the Bering Sea. The researchers dubbed the reorganization an act
of “rapid river piracy,” saying that such events had often occurred in
the Earth’s geologic past, but never before, to their knowledge, as a
sudden present-day event. They also called it “geologically
instantaneous...”

Photo credit: "A
stream flows through the toe of Kaskawulsh Glacier in Kluane National
Park in the Yukon. In 2016, this channel allowed the glacier’s meltwater
to drain in a different direction than normal, resulting in the Slims
River water being rerouted to a different river system." (Dan Shugar)

Is It OK to Tinker With The Environment to Fight Climate Change?The New York Times asks the rhetorical question. Again I ask, what can possibly go wrong with hacking Earth's climate system. Here's an excerpt: "For
the past few years, the Harvard professor David Keith has been
sketching his vision: Ten Gulfstream jets, outfitted with special
engines that allow them to fly safely around the stratosphere at an
altitude of 70,000 feet, take off from a runway near the Equator. Their
cargo includes thousands of pounds of a chemical compound - liquid
sulfer, let's suppose - that can be sprayed as a gas from the aircraft.
It is not a one-time event; the flights take place throughout the year,
dispersing a load that amounts to 25,000 tons. If things go right, the
gas converts to an aerosol of particles that remain aloft and scatter
sunlight for two years. The payoff? A slowing of the earth's warming -
for as long as the Gulfstream flights continue...."

As Climate Change Fuels Wildfires, Fighting Them Must Change, Report Says.InsideClimate News has the post: "As
wildfires in the American West grow larger and more frequent,
strategies to manage them will have to shift radically, according to a
new study. Among the researchers' recommendations are allowing natural
wildfires to burn and staging more controlled burns away from population
centers. For decades, the U.S. Forest Service has battled fires by
extinguishing them or by reducing dry wood that acts as fuel. But the
report published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences concludes that because climate change
is stoking bigger fires and development is placing more people in
fire-prone areas, that approach has become inadequate. "We're entering a
new era of wildfires and our old tools are not going to carry us
through," said Tania Schoennagel, a research scientist at the University
of Colorado at Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, who
co-authored the report..."

File photo: National Park Service.

Effects of Sea Level Rise May Extend Well Inland.
A migration away from the coasts here in the USA? It's already
happening in Louisiana and Alaska. Cities well inland may be impacted as
coastal-dwellers throw in the towel and move, according to a new study
highlighted by Andrew Freedman at Mashable: "...However,
by making large swaths of the U.S. shoreline uninhabitable by the end
of this century, sea level rise could reverberate far inland, too. In
fact every since U.S. state will be affected by climate change-induced
sea level rise, a new study found. If the global average sea level rises
by 1.8 meters, or nearly 6 feet, byh 2100 - which is well within the
mainstream projections from recent studies - 13.1 million Americans
could migrate away from coastal areas during this time period,
according to research published Monday in the journal Nature Climate
Change..."